Marianna Gartner (born 1963) is a

Canadian Canadians (french: Canadiens) are people identified with the country of Canada. This connection may be residential, legal, historical or cultural. For most Canadians, many (or all) of these connections exist and are collectively the source of ...

painter Painting is the practice of applying paint, pigment, color or other medium to a solid surface (called the "matrix" or "support"). The medium is commonly applied to the base with a brush, but other implements, such as knives, sponges, and ai ...

. Gartner was born in

Winnipeg Winnipeg () is the capital and largest city of the province of Manitoba in Canada. It is centred on the confluence of the Red and Assiniboine rivers, near the longitudinal centre of North America. , Winnipeg had a city population of 749,6 ...

Manitoba Manitoba ( ) is a Provinces and territories of Canada, province of Canada at the Centre of Canada, longitudinal centre of the country. It is Canada's Population of Canada by province and territory, fifth-most populous province, with a population o ...

, but moved to

Calgary Calgary ( ) is the largest city in the western Canadian province of Alberta and the largest metro area of the three Prairie Provinces. As of 2021, the city proper had a population of 1,306,784 and a metropolitan population of 1,481,806, makin ...

Alberta Alberta ( ) is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada. It is part of Western Canada and is one of the three prairie provinces. Alberta is bordered by British Columbia to the west, Saskatchewan to the east, the Northwest Ter ...

during her early childhood. She has also lived and worked in Budapest and Berlin. Gartner has exhibited and been collected mainly in Berlin, Paris, New York, Vienna, Budapest and Zurich. She currently lives and works in

Victoria, British Columbia Victoria is the capital city of the Canadian province of British Columbia, on the southern tip of Vancouver Island off Canada's Pacific coast. The city has a population of 91,867, and the Greater Victoria area has a population of 397,237. Th ...

, Canada.

Commentary on her work

Her paintings, often inspired by subjects in old photographs but manipulated to "create scenes which can challenge a contemporary viewer", have been variously described as "disquiet" and having a "haunting quality". Deirdre Hanna wrote the following about Gartner: "Award-winning essayist,

Alberto Manguel Alberto Manguel (born March 13, 1948, in Buenos Aires) is an Argentine-Canadian anthologist, translator, essayist, novelist, editor, and a former Director of the National Library of Argentina. He is the author of numerous non-fiction books such ...

, put Calgary-based Winnipeg native Marianna Gartner in the international limelight when he chose her as the only Canadian artist to profile in Reading Pictures, a 2002 book that also looks at paintings by historical giants including

Pablo Picasso Pablo Ruiz Picasso (25 October 1881 – 8 April 1973) was a Spanish painter, sculptor, printmaker, ceramicist and Scenic design, theatre designer who spent most of his adult life in France. One of the most influential artists of the 20th ce ...

and

Caravaggio Michelangelo Merisi (Michele Angelo Merigi or Amerighi) da Caravaggio, known as simply Caravaggio (, , ; 29 September 1571 – 18 July 1610), was an Italian painter active in Rome for most of his artistic life. During the final four years of hi ...

. For her first solo show since that book's publication, Sable-Castelli's Stepping Out, Gartner pulls back from the tattooed babies and circus freaks that first caught Manguel's attention."Deirdre Hanna
"Curio cabinet"
''Now'' magazine (Toronto), 15–22 February 2001, vol 20 no 24 "Instead, she focuses on what is both disturbed and disturbing in more banal (at first glance, anyway) imagery -- like the 19th-century, tweed-and-mutton-chop-whisker-sporting gunman in ''I'd Rather Be Hunting'', or the surreal little girl in a lacy pinafore of ''St. Margaret And The Dragon''." "Gartner's fascination with Victorian curios is very much in evidence in these near-monochromatic canvases, and as her references get more subtle, the parallels with

John Tenniel Sir John Tenniel (; 28 February 182025 February 1914)Johnson, Lewis (2003), "Tenniel, John", ''Grove Art Online, Oxford Art Online'', Oxford University Press. Web. Retrieved 12 December 2016. was an English illustrator, graphic humorist and pol ...

's illustrations for

Alice In Wonderland ''Alice's Adventures in Wonderland'' (commonly ''Alice in Wonderland'') is an 1865 English novel by Lewis Carroll. It details the story of a young girl named Alice who falls through a rabbit hole into a fantasy world of anthropomorphic creatur ...

become more apparent."

References

External links

*

Marianna Gartner on Artnet

Marianna Gartner on Art Facts Net
* Christie

1963 births Living people Artists from Calgary Artists from Victoria, British Columbia Artists from Winnipeg Canadian women painters 21st-century Canadian painters 21st-century Canadian women artists {{Canada-painter-stub